get your nose out of my crotch

Sid and I agreed when we got married, we'd have one biological child. I felt like that was all I could handle, and if someday we wanted more kids, we would adopt. We felt like that was a good plan, one that was right for us. So now that we have our one bio kid, we've been looking at long-term contraception. I thought Sid was going to get a vasectomy, but he's had two years to get it done and is still dragging his feet.

So I decided I should get an IUD. Specifically Mirena. I don't want to deal with periods. Ever since Spagett, my periods are irregular and stupid, and I would just rather not have to deal with it at all. I cannot remember to take my morning Synthroid, so taking a birth control pill at the same time every day is beyond me. An IUD, perfect.

My doctor agreed that it was a good choice, and I am waiting for her to set up my appointment at the naval hospital to have the thing put in, but she's been giving me a lot of crap about my decision to only have one child, and it's totally unnecessary. It's entirely unwanted.

Quite frankly, it's horribly presumptuous. She tells me "oh, you can't stop at one!" Uh, yes, I can: this is primarily why I'm getting Mirena, after all. Like I don't know myself well enough to know when enough is enough. I should just keep on popping out the kiddos until I go totally crazypants, is that it? It makes me so angry.

Spagett!

So it's been quite an eventful month. Partly. The half where I was on bedrest sucked, but it afforded me lots of time to watch tv and sleep, two activities that I no longer seem to have time for.

Talking to my mother a few weeks ago, she swore that I'd have the baby on the 2nd of December, which was also the date I'd pegged simply because I'd gone into preterm labor on the full moon, and so I just picked the date of the next full moon... December 2nd. Just as a joke, mind you.

HAR HAR, my water broke without warning on the night of the 2nd. And I mean totally without warning: I'd felt fine all day, went to bed as usual and after half an hour of lying there attempting to sleep, there was this feeling like a water balloon popping deep inside and OMGFLOOD. It was gross. Sid was more freaked out than I was, I think: I kept having to tell him to just calm down, we had plenty of time to get to the hospital.

So my water broke at 9:30 pm, and that was the official start of my labor. Eight and a half hours later, at 6:11 am, I had Spagett (just a nickname, trust me). A beautiful little boy, 7 pounds 8 ounces and 19 inches long. And would you know it, I didn't have any drugs at all? His delivery was all natural, every last bit of it, and YES RIOT, I screamed. Holy shit, you try pushing a melon out of your asshole, I bet you'll scream, too. I tore and needed stitches, I think I earned the right to holler a little bit.

As far as babies go, Spagett is a joy. He rarely cries, and when he does, it's just because he wants to eat. And this kid is an eater! I feel like he's on my tits all day long. He sleeps well at night, sometimes for as long as three or four hours at a stretch. And he's a perfect meld of me and Sid: my eyes, Sid's skin, my nose, Sid's hair... Sid's family insists he looks like Sid, and my family swears he looks like me. He looks like Spagett.

And of course, I think he is perfect.

this is freaky and I kind of don't like it

All my life (and I do mean literally "all my life"), eating meat off the bone has been totally beyond me. I can't do it. It makes me gag, ruins my appetite, and is just an all-around icky experience. IT IS TERRIBLY GROSS. It is one of the reasons I decided to just stop eating meat altogether, rather than try to justify my strange meat-eating preferences (NO, I won't eat that, it's got that funny line of fat through it. NO, I won't eat that, look at the blubber along that edge. NO, I wont eat that... and so on and so forth.).

Our neighbors invited us over for dinner this past Saturday, and ribs were on the menu. And surprisingly enough, I said "you know, I liked steak when I never have before, so I'm willing to give ribs a shot" and said I'd be there. And you know what? I LIKED IT.

D:

Yeah. Miss EW I CAN'T EAT IT OFF THE BONE ITS GROSS AND MAKES ME PUKE... ate ribs. And found them delicious.

This is worse than when I started levothyroxine and felt all weird in my own body. This absolutely trumps that whole experience. IT IS WEIRD. And to be honest, it really freaks me out and I kind of wish I could just go back to eating like normal. That will come in time, of course, but I'm impatient.

In better news, I broke down and started taking Zantac 75 for my wicked heartburn and it is HEAVEN. I can eat again! Unfortunately, I only caved and bought the stuff after a day in which my heartburn was so bad, I became violently ill and could not make it to the bathroom in time to hurl up Tums and stomach acid. But...RELIEF. YES. It's awesome.

internet, meet Spagett

Sid came with me to my appointment yesterday, and in hindsight, I'm so glad he did. I wasn't expecting to get an ultrasound, but the doctor wanted to do one "for dating purposes". Turns out Spagett is right on schedule, only one whopping day off from the due date I'd been given based on my last menstrual period.

It was surreal. There on the screen was this little stubby thing wiggling around with it's tiny heart just fluttering away right in the middle of it's blobby little body. It was just an image on the screen until I realized holy shit, this tiny alien-headed gummy bear on the screen is growing inside me. Until that moment, this pregnancy had been just an idea, an abstraction. Yes, my body had changed in all kinds of weird ways and intellectually, I knew there was something going on in there, but seeing it made it real.

Afterward, Sid told me, "I thought it looked like Baron Werner Ünderbheit."



I think he's got a point.

who knew...

...that belching could feel so great? Because I hadn't been able to burp for the last couple of weeks without everything in my stomach rising up in my throat. And the past few days have been mercifully free of that phenomenon. I CAN BURP AGAIN, OMG! :D

So yeah, I guess I'm beginning the long, slow crawl back to feeling like a human being again. I have nothing but respect for those women who suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum, because if it were me, honestly, no matter how much I wanted the baby at the end, I'm not sure anything could convince me to continue feeling that awful. Also, I have a massive phobia of throwing up. MASSIVE. I fight that gag reflex to the bitter end, and then I cry. Personally, I am not sure I could handle being that sick for that long.

That friend of mine who was rubbing her pregnancy in my face will be jealous that I'm feeling better, because she's got hyperemesis. I feel bad for it, but on the other hand, the part of me that's not-so-nice says that turnabout is fair play. But I won't stoop that low. I really, really won't. Even though I'd like to.

I keep telling myself...

...I wanted this.

I hoped I would be one of those women who never get morning sickness. Aaannnnd, it turns out... I am not. I am lucky, but not that lucky. A few days before I hit the six week mark, I started feeling nauseated. It has not let up since then.

All I can do is lie on the couch and desperately hope I won't start retching. But the good part? If I eat exactly what I'm craving at the moment, seriously, the nausea goes away. It comes back, sure, but I can snatch a break for a few hours. The drawback is that I have been wanting things that I don't have in the house. Like yesterday: I would have straight up shanked someone if it got me some cream cheese on toast. We had none, and I felt too damn sick to peel myself off the couch and go to the store. Then I wanted salt and vinegar chips. Alas, none to be had.

Thank FSM that today I wanted a fried egg sandwich and I had the makings of one in the fridge. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to sit here and type, I'd just be lying on the floor moaning.

I don't plan on telling the family what's going on until I hit 12 weeks. Unfortunately, I have to make a trip down to see them all for my sister's high school graduation, and if I'm this miserably ill, I won't be able to hide it. Here's hoping I'll luck out and only be sick for a few weeks.

welcome ICLWers!

I guess an introductory post is in order, huh? Better late than never, right?

I'm Starky (not my real name). I'm 24, turning 25 next month. I grew up in Amish Country, Pennsylvania and I miss it dearly. My husband, Sid, (also not his real name) is 29. We've known each other for almost eight years, and been married for about three and half. Sid is in the Navy, and we both view it as a means to an end, it's not really something that we use to define our lives - he actually hates being called a sailor, just like I hate being referred to as a military wife.

Sid went out on deployment this past year, and when he came back we decided we wanted to start our family. A homecoming baby would be so CUTE, right? Well, it didn't work out the way we'd planned. It turns out that Sid's got low sperm mobility, high viscosity, and low volume. We were told that our best shot at conceiving would be with intrauterine insemination. Sid was not ready to admit defeat, and I spent a lot of time on this blog bitching about it.

We tried to conceive on our own for nine cycles, and I know that's not a lot by some standards, but you ladies know how even one month can feel like an eternity. The time.just.dragged. And then I had this crazy dream that I took a pee test and three lines showed up. One was pink, which meant I was pregnant. One was orange, which meant I was having twins. And the last one was black, which meant that the pregnancy was viable.

Three days later, I took a pee test for shits and giggles, not really expecting to see anything but that one familiar, depressing line. And there were two. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the dream was accurate as well.

and so it begins

Sid is fascinated by my boobs. They just keep inflating. It's alarming, really, because I'm bloated all over anyway, and then there's these huge porn-queen boobies topping it all off and they HURT. And he wants to touch them. SQUEEZE them. Okay, one, my boobs are not squeaky toys. Two, IT FUCKING HURTS.

I've got a doctor's appointment this afternoon, the standard thyroid check, and I made the appointment before I knew there was a sprog in the works. So it should be interesting to tell her and get that particular ball rolling. I'm operating under the assumption that I need a referral from my primary care provider to see a specialist, in this case an obstetrician or certified nurse midwife. I know for sure that I'll need to have my routine thyroid checks done more frequently now. I wonder if she'll finally be amenable to upping my levothyroxine like I wanted her to when I first started trying to conceive?

And in other, weirder, news... I think Sid is having a sympathy pregnancy. Seriously, I've been weeing like a fiend, and having crazy dreams and waking up at all hours of the night, and he's doing the same damn thing. He's eating everything in the house (which I'm NOT doing, but sorely want to!) and conking out on the couch for a nap at precisely the same time I crash and want a snooze. He's even having hormonal hot flashes. It's maddening, because he's complaining so much, and I'm just taking it all in stride and reminding myself that what I'm feeling is A GOOD THING, these symptoms are GOOD THINGS. And Mr Couvade over there is bitching and moaning and complaining he's tired. BITCH BE STEALING MY GLORY.

wow

Every morning this week I've taken a pregnancy test, unable to believe my eyes. I kept thinking that I was dreaming, that I was hallucinating the second pink line that kept growing steadily darker. I thought I've finally cracked.





This brought it home a little.

not taking it for granted

The line is darker today. Sid could see it without squinting.

I want so much to believe that this is it, and it will all work out, and nine months from now, we'll have our baby. But I know that it doesn't always work like that. God, do I know it.

I probably won't really believe this until I get a positive on a digital test, until Miss P goes missing, until I get the blood test from my doctor.

But for now, this is the best I could have hoped for. I am not taking it for granted.

confession

Confession: I peed on a stick.

I got good and burned in August, and ever since, I've sworn off early testing. I WOULD NOT TEST UNTIL MISS P WAS A NO-SHOW. At least, that was the plan... Sometimes I'd get impatient, if I'd been having wonky symptoms, something that was not normally a thing I associated with an impending bloodletting. Only that one time, that ONE TIME, did I ever see something that could have passed for a positive test.

Well, now I have another.

I've been feeling...off. Weird lotiony discharge (am I grossing you out, hoor?), major cramping since 5 dpo, you know, the standard, oh, geez, is this finally it? thing. And I wasn't going to use a piss test, no sir, I was not. So when I got up this morning, I DIDN'T USE A PISS TEST. No, that came later on, when I was about to take a shower, and I thought "oh what the hell, I've only got two left anyway, and if this month isn't it, I'm gonna order some OPK strips anyway, might as well just go ahead and get some more pregnancy tests while I'm at it, so why not?" and I PEED ON A STICK.

Five minutes later I came back to check it and there was a faint, faint second pink line. There is no mistaking it. I'm not imagining it, this thing is ghostly faint, BUT IT'S THERE.



I PEED ON A STICK. AND IT WAS GLORIOUS.

Now I'm just hoping that that little-pink-ghosty-line gets darker.

happy anniversary

For our anniversary, we found out that Sid's not quite up to snuff in the baby-making department. Yes, the results of his semen analysis are in, and some of his numbers are way off, His doctors are going to be doing more tests.

So yeah, happy anniversary to us... right?

I'm actually not really bothered by it, I just wish the timing had been a little better. When asked what we did for our third wedding anniversary, I will ever after be forced to reply, "we found out that we suck at making babies."

HAR.

a bitter pill to swallow

This article left me in tears. I don't understand how people can be so cruel to the children they are supposed to love and protect and care for. I don't want to know what kind of sick fuck you've got to be to be so cruel to a child. And it's shit like this that makes me wish I believed in hell. There is no justice in the world, none at all.

Maybe it's just because I'm crazy hormonal, and suffering a huge disappointment, but seriously. I can't take the bullshit. Miss P is officially late, and shows no sign of wanting to show up. And Sid doesn't know it, but I took a pregnancy test yesterday. It was negative.

I will say no more about it.

This means that I am probably hypo again. Which I also don't want to say anymore about, but I need to get this out. If I tell Sid what I'm feeling right now, he won't understand. And I can't handle that right now.

I hate being sick. I hate that it makes me different. I don't mind it, usually. Normally, I'm just happy to be feeling okay again, and I'm eternally grateful that I have an illness that is manageable. But I hate that every month, I have to walk to the pharmacy to pick up my levothyroxine, and that everyone can see me walking home with my pill bag. I hate that I have to plan my meals around that pill, that I can't eat when I'm hungry if I'm in that three hour window, that I can't just up and go somewhere without dragging my medicine with me in case I can't get home in time to take it. And when I think these things, I feel so ungrateful. I should be glad that I am so lucky: I have insurance that pays for my bloodwork, I live in a country where I have access to the medicine that will make me feel well again.

So right now I'm feeling a little bit a lot like shit. Compounding that, Sid doesn't know I took a pregnancy test already, and he's trying to be helpful by telling me that starky, you never know, it might not be your thyroid, maybe you're pregnant. I don't have it in me to tell him I do know, I am not pregnant, it has to be my thyroid. As much as it hurt to tell myself that, I don't have the heart to do it to him.

the Mansons talk spawnage

A few days ago, I came up with a title for an entry, and it was, to my mind, perfect. And now that I actually have the time and the privacy to write, I can't remember what it was I'd thought up. And I don't know what's happened lately that I feel the need to record for posterity.

OH, let's start off with a gem: if my period is late this month, I'm either hypothyroid again, or pregnant. I don't know which at this point, all I do know is that I'm pretty icky feeling and waiting to see what happens. For the past week and a half, I have been nauseated and miserably tired. You see? It could go both ways. Either way, methinks I'm going to end up getting my thyroid checked, so in that respect, the situation is lose-lose. I'm going to end up with needles in me either way.

The second gem: if I am pregnant, it was entirely planned. Oh yes, you read rightly. Part of me is scared to fucking death at the decision. Another part of me is insisting that Sid and I are doing something very stupid, and that I should bail now while I still have time. The third part is just sitting back in disbelief at the fact that Sid has come around to the idea of spawnage. I imagine I will have more thoughts on this matter if/when I get a positive test.

Giving up my four-cups-o-caffeinated-goodness-a-day habit has been excruciating. Literally as well as emotionally. I loves me some coffee, almost as much as cheese or chocolate or ice cubes. Going without makes starky a sad panda! At first, that's why I thought I was tired and sick, but once the unholy headaches eased up, I still felt like shit, so I tossed that notion out the window. I still allow myself one cup a day, but to me, that's like taking just a bite of cheese, just one ice cube, just one little piece of chocolate... It's just a tease.

dreaming: better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but only barely

First and foremost, Sid, if by some strange chance you have found this blog, for the love of cheese, look away now. Just stop reading and go find something else to do. Please.

I had some weird dreams last night, and they weren't your standard "oh, how STRANGE" kind of dreams, oh no, that would be too simple. In the first, I had sex with Brad Pitt. And I don't even find Brad Pitt to be attractive. If it had been a lucid dream, I assure you it would have been Alan Rickman as Severus Snape. Most assuredly, it would have been.

But yeah. A sex dream. A STARKY FIRST. The worst part is, in the dream, I was still married to Sid. Fuckin' A, I cheated on my husband in a dream. If it's any consolation, which it isn't, Brad Pitt was cheating on Angelina Jolie, so it kind of evened out.

I woke up feeling awful. Because I cheated on my husband in a dream.

Believe me, I know it makes no sense.

So when I feel back asleep, I dreamed I was pregnant (ooh boy, that can of worms again). I'm not going to get into specifics, because it's really unimportant, but goddamn it, I was so happy. That's what sticks out to me. I remember telling someone that I was having twins, a boy and a girl (which is another can of worms, believe me). And I was happy, did I mention that? Truly, genuinely happy. Despite all the problems that were happening in the dream, which very closely mirrored my real life worries, I was smiling and not faking it. I was hopeful in a way that I have not been in a very long time, and that I fear I will never again experience in this life.

When I woke up, I seriously thought I might be sick. I felt like such utter shit, it seemed like vomiting was the only way to express it besides tears. And I am done with crying over stupid shit like this. Done, I tell you. There is no use crying over something so idiotic. There is no use dwelling on it. There is no use in even thinking about it for another second.

So I move on. To what, I have no idea. I'm still searching for that.

so tight my ass squeaks

My mother said that once about my father: "he's so tight his ass squeaks". As you can guess, they argued about money a lot. Or maybe you can't guess. It does sound a little...risque.

Food prices here are not so terribly bad, but I'm still alarmed. So I've been looking online for ways to save money on groceries, and one way I've found is to use powdered milk for cooking. This sounds like a really good idea, as that's usually the only thing I use milk for. It's fairly cheap, cheaper than regular milk, so what the hey? I'm going to try to find some next time I go to the store, and see how I like it. Maybe, if it's not so bad, I can put a few drops of vanilla in it and it will be good for regular drinking and breakfast cereal, too. We'll see.

And I'd like to start stocking up on non-perishables now, while we have the money, because Sid's talking seriously about trying for spawnage when he comes home in a few months, and I'd like to have some stuff put back so that if/when I get pregnant, we've got more money to spend on baby stuff.

Now that the weather is getting nice, I wish we could plant a garden. I'm sure our landlady wouldn't mind, but at the same time...this isn't our house. I'd hate to put all that effort into a garden and then have to leave it. So in the meantime, I'm looking at little window planters. At the least, we can grow our own spices and stuff. Maybe some little window tomatoes!

When I go to the store next, I plan on buying the ingredients for bread. I can easily make my own for lots cheaper than storebought bread, and it will be lots yummier, too. When my father-in-law asked us what we wanted for a wedding gift, and I told him we wanted a breadmaker...it was the smartest thing I think I've ever done. That poor breadmaker gets so much use, just like our crockpot.

Sid has expressed an interest in "eating healthy". I'm not sure what else he'd like me to try to do, besides stop cooking pizza. We already eat lots of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. I make my own soups, we don't buy the canned kind (less sodium and fat that way). When we need ground meat for something, we always try to get turkey instead of beef because it's not so fatty. Really, the only thing that needs to change is Sid's insistence on buying snack foods.

random snark

Over the summer, when Sid and I were talking about having a baby, I joined an online community called BabyCenter. It seemed like a friendly place, and it had lots of helpful information, and lots of helpful, supportive people. I had thought that when/if I got pregnant, it would be something like my support group; seeing as I don't have many friends with children, and my parents (my mother especially) are not the kinds of people you can just ask advice from, I thought it would be a good place to ask questions and talk to women going through some of the same things.

Seemingly overnight, this friendly, supportive community has been literally split. The powers that be have decided to beta-test a new forum, and not everyone was invited. A few people were invited, and those people were allowed to invite others. Well, the ones who never received invites (like me) are understandably pissed. The forums are dead! Everyone's posting on the "new site" and suddenly the place seems like some elitist junior high clique.

Anyway, I don't like the direction the site is taking. I think the beta-testing was very poorly handled (deliberately excluding half of a tight knit community usually is!) and from what I understand, it's got a very "MySpace" feel. I hate MySpace.

Another site I loved did the same thing. Bolt. Bolt decided to make all these great changes, and start a new site with forums and it was just like MySpace. The old, original Bolt was left to fester and was finally shut down. The new Bolt wasn't very popular, and it, too, was shut down. I see BabyCenter headed in the same direction.

I don't think I'll be going back.

the evolution of a dream

Ever since the age of 14, I had dreams that I was pregnant. These were fairly frequent dreams, at least once a week, and more often and more vivid around the times I was expecting my period. They were never bad dreams; that is, I don't recall being frightened or upset in them, except for a rare few. But there was never really any real story to them; they were just like random moments in time. They always left me puzzled, because before I met my husband, I had never even considered having biological children; I have always, always wanted to adopt.

In any case, I'm sure you noticed the past tenses. About a year or so ago, these dreams stopped. Quite suddenly. I'd just assumed they'd "taken a break", that they'd be back eventually. But no.

And now, for the past two months, I've been dreaming about children. It's never the same child each time, just like each of my pregnancy dreams were never exactly the same. For example, in last night's dream, I found myself holding a little girl. No explanation as to how we reached that point, I just found myself holding a baby girl. She was dark skinned and definitely not my own child, wrapped in a fuzzy blue blanket. She had a hat on, pink or purple, maybe striped with both. I wanted to take pictures of her, but the flash on the camera scared her and she cried. And I loved her. I remember that so clearly, this outpouring of affection and a need to protect her.

That was it. They're all like that, to be honest. Just like a photograph; there's no story, no background to tell me how we reached the moment being depicted. It's just me and this child.

If I wanted to be honest (which I don't), I'd say these dreams make me bitterly sad. If I felt like lying (which I do), I'd say they're really stupid. And either way, this isn't something I feel like I can share with Sid.

disgusted with myself

Miss P showed yesterday. And would you believe it, I cried?

Cried. All. Day. Long. Because apparently I am in massive denial. I tell myself that I'm not ready for a baby, this isn't the right time, this is not something I really want, and that way, when the disappointment hits, it's not so crushing.

I am totally, utterly disgusted with myself for blubbering like a wuss. It's not as if someone died. It's not as though I've actually lost anything or anyone. So why am I so fucking sad?

Maybe it's because I know this is something I can't have, now or maybe ever, and yet I can't let it go. I just can't. If the man who raped me is able to have a child with his (lovely, I'm sure) wife, to my mind, there's no reason under heaven that I shouldn't also have that privilege, and that happiness. If he can have it, why can't I?

Well, that's just base jealousy, and I'm not proud of it, but I'm going to call a spade a spade, here. I'm jealous. That man took so much from me, and I remember how I cried when I found out he'd gotten married. Not because I still loved him or anything so sick and twisted. No, it's just that that was what I wanted, that was my secret wish, to marry and have a family, and here I was, engaged to Sid, and it was like a slap in the face that that miserable excuse for a human being should have what I wanted, before I'd even had a crack at it. And I sound like some spoiled little brat.

You're probably thinking, starky, this isn't a race, and you'd be right. But I'm going to be totally honest with you, it absolutely feels like that asshole has stolen something vital from me, and I must do something to get it back, reclaim it. He took the things I wanted more than anything else and he made them his. Do you see what I mean? It feels as though everything is right in his life, and everything is wrong in mine.

And that's downright ungrateful and petty of me, because Sid tries his best to make me happy, and it's not his fault that I feel like something's missing. It shouldn't be his responsibility to fill the gaps left by someone else's stupidity and jealousy.

So buck up, starky, you silly cow. Nothing's going to change, because nothing can change, and you're being an ungrateful little bitch.

uh-oh...

I keep telling myself this is nothing to worry about. I'm late.

LAAAAAATE.

Stress will do it to ya, so I'm keeping my asshole crossed (don't even ask, it's an awful expression Sid and I use between each other). But when I count back the days, I just feel like screeching. It was supposed to have started on what day? The beginning of the month?!

And I am just totally in denial about it, because I feel all PMS-y, and I'm so sure every day when I wake up that today is totally going to be the day. And it isn't. And I didn't even really think about it that closely until this week.

This is bad. Baaad. Only with lots more a's. Now, you know that's just awful.

And I know, without a doubt, that the day I break down and pee on the stick and get that negative result will be the same day Miss P finally arrives. Because that's always how it works. She makes me waste my money and time and wee, and then shows up all "O HAY, I BET U WUZ W0NDERIN WHER I B!!!1!1!11!eleventyone". The bitch.

Just watch it be the real thing this time, though. Oh, that would be just my luck. Hey starky, you wanted a kid so badly, HERE YA GO! And Sid? Well, he'll be overseas. He gets the easy job. All you have to do, starky, is cook the kid and show up at the pier with it 10 months from now. Oh Siddy, what a homecomng, eh buddy?

Barf.

I sort of casually mentioned to Sid the other day that I was still waiting on the bitch, and he gave me that squirrelly look and then laughed and said "oh, the little abortion that got away." We are such sick fucks.